Her Darling Child
by Lucy Maria Elmer
Summary: Selena ponders the existence of her unborn child.
1. Chapter 1

What kind of person am I? What kind of mother could I ever be? I'm lying here on this bed, my almost flat stomach cold with the gel and your tiny image on the screen beside me and I can't even bring myself to look at you. My baby. My flesh and blood. A tiny little person safe inside my womb.

You're so unexpected. Such a shock. I've wanted you for so long but to find out you are here…to be late, to feel the nausea, to see the two lines on that test which confirmed your existence within me and now to see your perfect image on the screen next to me…nothing has ever shaken me like that…or torn my heart so much. I never thought I'd wonder whether to not have a child if I ever found myself in this situation, but now I can't do anything else. I can barely bring my eyes to look at your tiny little body and properly acknowledge you within me. Nothing has ever broken my heart more my darling little one. It's as if I'm living in denial.

You daydream about motherhood when you're young. I did so many times. I pictured the loving husband by my side as I took the test that would tell us I was carrying our child and the joy we would feel when it came up positive. I always pictured someone at my side to comfort me when I was scared, to lie with me as our child kicked inside me, his ear against my stomach talking to the baby as it let us know it was there, both of us so excited that in a few short months we'd be holding you in our arms. I pictured having someone to hold me during difficult moments and rub my back and tummy as the pregnancy progressed and you grew safely inside me. Something so wonderful. A blessing I always wanted. Instead I took the test alone in a hospital toilet cubicle, fear gripping me because a man I now despise could be your father. I cried because I wish you never existed…not now…not if you're his and now I find myself wanting to cry again because I should be so happy and I'm not. I always wanted you and I'm wishing you weren't here. I'm just numb and wishing you away and I hate myself for that.

Maggie's so excited. She's such a natural mother and such a good friend to me even though I can't admit it to her just yet. She's doing her best to support me and to help me through this and all I can give her back sometimes is sarcasm and anger because I'm too afraid to let anyone close to me anymore even though I want to try. I need Maggie more than I ever admit. She's my best friend and my rock. I shouldn't need that support though should I? I shouldn't need someone to help me find the good in this. Most mums to be are happy when they find out that they're pregnant, but Maggie's more excited than I am. It shouldn't be that way should it?

Ultrasounds should be so magical. Don't get me wrong I'm in awe when I see you on that screen during the brief moment I let my eyes take your picture in…the moment I let my guard down and some of the maternal feelings I've been suppressing come to the surface. I can feel my heart beating so fast when Maggie points out your little arms, and your strong heartbeat and I share her excitement just for a split second when I forget who could be your father and see you for the tiny, vulnerable baby you are but then reality dawns. You're so big. Too big to be the child of the man I love. Instead you're the child of a man that has caused me so much hurt and once again I wonder how I could bring into this world a child who is a piece of him, no matter how much love I feel for you when I see you so perfectly formed on the screen at my side.

I sit up and quickly rub off the gel, as if trying to wash away your existence once again and any trace of maternal feeling that I felt when I saw your picture on that screen. I cover up my tummy and brace myself as Maggie tells me what I already knew…that Nathan is your father, not Harry and then the tears come again in torrents. Who would have thought I'd be so emotional? But then you are my baby after all.

'It means there's no doubt who the father is…I'm not sure I can keep it…" I tell Maggie feeling so broken as she explains how old you are. I break down into sobs as once again my world is shattered.

The many tears are for you my darling child. For the baby that I so want to keep, for the mother that I so want to be and mostly for the fact that I'm not sure I can bring something so beautiful and so wanted into this world no matter how much it would pain me not to do so. Please don't think I don't love you. Don't think I don't lay there at night with a hand on my stomach picturing you inside me. I've done that since the moment I first thought that you may be here. Please don't think that I hate you and that is why I'm considering letting you go either my sweetheart. I hate your father. I hate how much he's hurt me and I hate myself for loving him but you…you I could never hate.

In the brief time I've known of your existence I've been in turmoil, not knowing what to do but I promise you that you are wanted. No matter how cold I may appear about your existence deep down there are so many emotions I'm keeping at bay in case I can't have you. Emotions that would make it harder for me to let go. In the moments I've stood at work with my hand on my tummy thinking of you you've always been wanted my little baby. I just don't know if I can have you and I ask that you please forgive me, because like I said if I even have to think that, what kind of mother would I be?


	2. Chapter 2

-1I sit here in the car cold and with tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. Never have I cried as much before as I have since I held that positive test in my shaking hands but the intensity of these emotions threaten to overwhelm my every moment. Emotions that come with finding out that you're carrying a baby and with not knowing what to do about the child growing inside your womb.

Days have passed since the ultrasound where I first saw you. Days where I have been unable to get your image out of my head. The image of your perfect little body that has already grown bigger inside my belly since then, the image of your arms and legs, your little heartbeat…my baby. My beautiful child. It's like you're permanently imprinted in my mind, begging me to keep you, to care for you, to not push you away and try and make my decision easier…to love you every day of our lives and I do want to I promise you that. It's just every time I think of you I think of him, I think of the pain he's caused me and the tears and they break my heart. I think of you right now as I sit in this dark car watching the world pass by and I think of you with intense, all consuming sadness, and I wonder what you did to deserve such a mess.

How I wish you hadn't been fathered by someone so heartless and so cruel my little baby. This would all be so much easier then. I can't believe such cruel words passed his lips tonight as I told him about your existence. The past few days as I've thought about you my heart has been filled with such love. Such fear but so much love. Speaking to Maggie I told her keeping you was an if but I'm not sure I could or should let you go and I think she knows that. She doesn't want me to make a mistake. She knows me a lot more than I ever give her credit for. I should take the time to get to know her a bit better too. She deserves that from me. You've shown me that.

I've wanted you for so long my little child ,but when your father said those things to me, about there still being time to terminate you, about how if there's anything he could do to hurry things along…it reminded me how much of a mistake he was and it shook me to the core. Here you are growing inside of me, his child, and there he was wanting rid of you as soon as possible, like you were an inconvenience, like you don't even matter. Like you're not that little person with arms and legs and a heartbeat. He didn't think of my feelings, about how it feels for me to be carrying a baby or how hard it was for me to tell him, he certainly didn't think of you, he just wanted you gone and the hate and hurt that he conjured in me towards him at that very moment was what caused me to say to him that why would I keep you because then I'd have to live with a constant reminder of him every day. I was so hurt and so very alone. It was lunch I'd been punched in the heart and it had shattered into millions of tiny pieces. I wanted some kind of reassurance but I got nothing. Then again that's all I ever got from Nathan. I didn't even really mean what I said. Not completely.

Please believe me when I say that would be the only reason for me not to have you. It would be so hard being reminded of such a cruel man every day and a relationship that at times made me be someone I detested. It would be especially hard after he left me standing in the hospital today feeling so lost and so broken , wondering how on earth someone could feel so little for a woman they once said they loved and their unborn child.

There's no lack of love on my part sweetheart. There's certainly no lack of fear either, I'm absolutely petrified, but not loving you is something I could never do. Sometimes I have found myself laying on the sofa at home with my hand over you inside me picturing what it would be like to have you there with me at that moment, gurgling in your moses basket, laying in my arms so fragile as I soothed you to sleep or nursed you, holding you against me so closely and feeling the warmth of your skin against mine. At work I find myself standing there with a palm over my stomach as if to protect you, to share in a moment that only you and I can have as mother and unborn child and yet here I am saying to both Maggie and Nathan that having you is an if. But like I said it's not that I don't want you. It's that Nathan's your father and I find it so hard to picture myself raising a baby that's his…but then you're not just a part of him are you? So maybe I could do it after all if I found the strength. It's just something that seemed to desert me the moment he left me standing there so alone.

I looked at little Jemima today, such a perfect little girl in need of so much love and protection and I pictured you my darling. I could see Maggie watching me with her, thinking how on earth could I be considering a termination when I obviously felt so much for such a little person. Having her tiny little fingers wrapped around one of mine conjured images of you doing the same to me one day, to your mummy. That's what I am after all isn't it? Even this early on? Your mummy. I just wish I felt more like one sometimes. Maybe then this would be an easier choice to make because right now I want to put a hand on my tummy and have some kind of sign that things will be okay. I can't bring myself to do it though, or to touch any part of something that might be his.

I am so sorry my baby that your father is the way he is and I'm so sorry that your mother is feeling so lost. I truly wish I wasn't sweetheart. I want nothing more than to find the happiness that comes with expecting a baby of your own. Maybe it'll come…maybe it won't. Just know that for now I'm just so, so sorry, for your fathers words, for my retaliation to them and for not being able to give you the complete love that you deserve right now as I try and find the strength to make a decision that will change the rest of my life. Thoughts of you do bring me happiness as well as the normal fear that comes with parenthood, please don't worry about that. I just feel so lost, and until I make the decision that is true to my heart I will be. I promise you one thing though I'll never not love you and there will never be a moment I wont think of you, my darling child.


	3. Chapter 3

-1I sit here in the clinic, my head filled with thoughts of you, your father and of what's to come when they call my name. I can't believe that I'm sat here right now. I can't believe that I have you safely inside of me and yet I'm here because I've chosen to let them take you away from me, your mother, the one person who is supposed to love you and protect you for the rest of your life.

I always wanted children, always. I thought that when I was to fall pregnant, even if it was in unexpected circumstances, that I would embrace the chance of motherhood because inside of me would be a little person depending on me, needing my protection, a part of me who would be such a little miracle that I could never, ever terminate such a precious life. Here I am though, waiting for my name to be called, your father shouting outside, both of us knowing that I've chosen not to have you and I know that this is something that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.

I've spent weeks thinking of you my baby. Weeks wondering what kind of mother I could ever be to a child fathered by a man like Nathan. A man who broke my heart into a million pieces and tore it to shreds. A man who now has decided that he wants you, when the day I told him about you he just shrugged you off and walked away leaving me in tears. How can I have you when he's hurt me so much? How can I bring you into the world just for him to hurt you like he has me? Spending one day with two children doesn't make you qualified to be a father and to make the decision that he has about wanting you after being so cold when told of your impending arrival. You can't be around for the good bits and then walk away when things get hard. That's the kind of man that your father is and I know that while he says he wants you now there's every chance that some time in the future he'll change his mind and I can't put you through that darling or me and I'm so incredibly sorry.

My hands fumble nervously, pulling at loose stitching on the sofa that I sit on during my last moments as a mother to be. They subconsciously find their way to my stomach as if to protect you from the decision I have made and as soon as they rest over the place where you're nestled safely inside me I feel such guilt and sadness over what I have chosen to do. As far as I can see there's no other choice. There's no other way for me to get over what your daddy has put me through other than to have the last piece of him in my life taken away from me. I don't want any ties to him, even if that means not having you. My little baby. My precious, darling child.

You're not just part of him though are you. This is what tears me to shreds. You're part of me too. You're my flesh and blood, being carried in my womb, in my tummy, making me nauseous and tired but still something that's mine and so beautiful. How can I be doing this to my own baby? To the little child that I saw on the screen of the ultrasound machine, so perfectly formed with little arms and legs and a heartbeat. I could keep you, carry you to term, watch as my bump grows as you grow inside of me and stand in awe as I feel you move inside of me and then kick for the first time. It should be so magical and such a profound journey. But then I think of him. Of what he was doing behind my back. Of how dirty I felt when I found out and I remember why I'm here, and no matter how much it pains me and how much I want to be a mummy and for things to be different, I know that I don't have the strength to have you right now . I'm doing this because of him and what he did. I hope you never, ever think that it's because I didn't love you for I always will.

It does hurt me sweetheart. Please don't think that it doesn't hurt me to know that you've been within me for over three months now but in just a little while you will be gone and it will be all my doing. My heart aches for the chance to be a mother to you. It aches for a part of me to feel so sure that I would be a good mother that I could find the strength to just get up right now and walk out of here ready for a new start as a mummy rather than the lonely Doctor that I really am. That's not going to happen though. It can't. My head won't let it and so I sit here with my hands on my stomach and I wonder what you would have looked like, what it would have felt like to cradle you in my arms or to nurse you and I curse the man screaming outside of those doors for making me feel I have no choice but to terminate your little life.

I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to keep you my baby. As my hands rest on my stomach I feel such love for you and I start to cry as I realise that this is the conclusion to such a painful chapter in my life. I wish I was stronger. I wish I really was the strong, independent Doctor that everyone thinks I am but I'm not. I'm just a lonely woman who has never felt so lost, so hurt or so unloved.

I can't be a mother can I? I'm not cut out to be a mother. How can I be if I'm sat here right now? How could I keep you only to explain to you when you're older that I was sat on a sofa in an abortion clinic when I was three months pregnant because I'd chosen to end your life? There's no going back for me now and as they call my name I run a hand over my still non existent bump saying my silent goodbye to you, for I know now that I don't deserve to be a mother to you. You don't deserve a mother who's sat in a clinic wishing your life away because she doesn't have the strength of character to keep carrying you and to bring you in to the world because of the man that is your father. It's better that you're gone than having to grow up with us as your parents. If the past is anything to go by we'd only mess it up anyway. And I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't bear it.

So this is it. This is where I become empty. This is where I say goodbye to the baby that has dominated all of my thoughts in recent weeks and where I become one of the many who has decided that to not have their unborn baby was the best option for both them and their child. I sit on the bed in a gown as they prepare me for the procedure and clutch my stomach once again as tears of loss and sadness fall from my eyes. I've realised these truly are the last few moments I will know what it is like to have you inside of me.

"I'm so sorry little petal. I love you. Goodbye."


	4. Chapter 4

I always knew that it would be hard. How could it not be hard to get over something so traumatic or to live with the decision that I have made. It is after all a life changing decision, the decision to terminate the tiny little life that's growing inside of you. A little life that you helped to create. A little person who is part of you and nestled inside of you safe and sound. A little person who should be so precious. No-one could just get over that although I must admit that I had kind of hoped that I would. I hoped the anger that I felt towards Nathan would numb the pain I felt for deciding to terminate you my little baby and make me feel that the decision I had made truly was the right one. How wrong I was. How absolutely, totally wrong.

I don't think anyone ever knows what they're going to feel like after doing what I've done. I certainly didn't expect to feel like this. To feel the all consuming grief and sense of loss, a deep ache that never goes away because you are no longer within me. Tess said today that I needed to let myself grieve but I feel like I have no right to because terminating your life was my choice. It was all down to me. I should be punishing myself for what I did to you, not grieving because you're gone. That would make me a fraud wouldn't it? because I was the one who chose to end your life. I was the one who chose not to keep you. I was the one who lay there while they removed you from within me. What right do I have to grieve for the baby whose life I took away? Your own mother!

When I was carrying you I was filled with so many mixed emotions. I was filled with such love for you, my unborn child but also fear. Fear that I would never be a good mother to you, fear that I wouldn't be able to love you when you were born because of the man who was your father, fear that I wouldn't be able to bring you up on my own…so much fear…and so much anger towards your daddy. I let that fear and anger overshadow the love that I felt and the need I truly felt within me to continue the pregnancy and bring you into the world. I let the hate that I have for him and the hurt that I carry inside of me because of him every day completely overshadow any joy I felt about the pregnancy or any belief I had within me that I would be a good, loving and doting mother to you. I let the hurt, anger and self loathing that I felt for loving him and letting him hurt me turn my head against my heart and in doing so chose to end your life. Now I am stood here, watching this tiny little baby boy breathing such precious breaths and I could just collapse onto the floor in agony with the ache I feel inside of me that tells me how wrong I was to let my little baby go.

I wanted you so much. I wanted so much to have the strength to carry on with my pregnancy. You don't realise what you have had until you let it go and now I have realised that I have let go what was possibly the most precious and wanted thing in my life. My child. My little, innocent child.

When this little boy was brought in today, so tiny and such a little miracle I couldn't even put a line in because seeing him, so beautiful with such tiny little fingers and toes…so fragile, made me think of you. All I could think of was that I would never feel you inside of me again, feel the nausea or the tiredness you brought to me, the butterflies in my tummy that I would have felt as the pregnancy progressed and you would move, the kicks that I would have felt as you grew within me or the contractions that would come as I brought you into the world and into my arms and my life, forever filling a hole I didn't know that I had until now.

In front of me was a tiny little boy that needed my help and all I could think of was that I'd chosen to let you go, the baby inside of me that in just a few short months would have been a little person just like him that I would have been cradling in my arms, and able to touch and kiss. Mine to love and protect for the rest of my life. How could I have done that to you sweetheart? How could I have deprived myself of the baby that I loved and had wanted for so long in my life? Because I did love you my darling, so much and I hate myself because I know that I made the wrong choice and now there's no going back.

I stand here in the quiet and for the first time since that awful day I really allow myself to cry for you. Looking at him makes me think of all of the things that I'm going to miss out on and I wish so hard that I could turn back time and have you nestled safely within my womb again because I know that if I had a second chance I would never let you go. I feel so empty as I look at him knowing that I don't have you within me any longer. There's a hole where you used to be and an ache so deep that it touches my soul. I chose not to have my own little baby who I will now never hold, never cuddle, never kiss, bathe or change. I'll never nurse you and feel the closeness that comes with something so beautiful like that and I'll never sing you to sleep. There are just so many things that I will never be able to do. Would you have been a little boy or a little girl? Now I'll never, ever know.

I watch as baby Steve wriggles around in front of me and let the sobs overcome me as I stare at his tiny hands and feet and wistfully think of you. They're not gentle, they make my whole body shake and while I try and stop the tears from falling I find that fighting them is futile. The sobs are violent, my body feeling like it's going to shatter with the force of all of the sadness with which I cry for you and my hands find their way to my now empty belly and cradle it as I grieve for you. Oh how I grieve my darling, every second of every day.

You were a little person, you would have been a beautiful little girl or a gorgeous little boy just like him but I robbed both of us of our life together by making the choice which I now regret with all of my being. You were so perfect on that scan, so beautiful. I may have tried not to look but I couldn't help it and I was in awe as I saw how perfect you were. But I was too hurt by Nathan to listen to the heart which was screaming out for me to keep you and instead followed thoughts blackened by hurt, anger and Nathan's betrayal. I wanted him out of my life and that meant choosing not to have you, but you weren't just his, you were my baby too and it rips me to shreds knowing that you were so beautiful and innocent but that I never gave us a chance.

The power of the sobs and the pain that they cause make me happy somehow. Like they're a punishment for the horrible thing that I did to you. I should feel awful. I should feel pain. I should hurt every day because I lay there in that clinic bed while they took you from me and I let them do it. I chose for them to do it. I never realised what a connection I had to you until you were no longer inside me my darling but since that very moment when they told me it was over its been as if a part of me has gone. Not just you my sweetheart but part of my heart, part of my love and part of the person that deserved the chance to be a mother. I am so empty and its because you're not here anymore. My beautiful little child.

And so I ask that you forgive me. The mother who chose the wrong path. The mother who felt such a connection to you from the moment she found out she was pregnant and yet let the anger, fear and resentment towards your father dull the maternal instinct and the love in her heart for you until she made the only choice she thought was right. But it really wasn't the right choice my little one. I know that now and I know at my heart will punish me for your loss for the rest of my life.


End file.
